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Position History (former Basic Pays) Tab in the Employees Section

Plan the upcoming changes in Basic Pays according to changes in Department, Occupation, Cost Centre, Section, Unit, Grade and Location

Serena Santamaria avatar
Written by Serena Santamaria
Updated over a week ago

Announcement 📢 : The Basic Pays tab has been renamed to Position History (Basic Pays), with the plan to eventually change it to Position History. Rest assured, all the functions you're used to are still the same for the most part... so what's new with this tab? Proceed with the article to find out. 😉

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Table of Contents

Introduction

The Position History tab's purpose is to provide a detailed history of changes to Basic Pay throughout the employee's work cycle, along with the following fields:
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​Occupation 🛠️ The list of all available positions within the company.
​Cost Centre 🏦 The internal accounts to which you assign employee-generated costs.
​Department 🏢 A division of the company.
​Section 👥 Departments are usually split into Sections.
​Unit 👤 Sections are usually split into Units.
​Grade 💰 It identifies a position's pay range.
​Location 🏙️ The physical site an employee works from.
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This log of changes will help you be truly accurate in different scenarios, such as when aligning your basic pay changes with the company's chosen grade for a specific position. It also aids in reporting on:

  • The payment range for a specific occupation.

  • The cost centres to which the basic pays are allocated.

  • Departments, sections and units affected by specific choices about pay.

  • The wages trend for a specific location and a certain occupation type.

  • Employee promotions and salary increases.

  • And much more...

You can achieve this by extracting the Position History data to work on as you please.
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🙂 Good News

The Basic Pays records entered before the introduction of the Position History feature will still be displayed. These values will be shown as they were at the time the Basic Pay was created, along with their corresponding Occupation, Cost Centre, Department, Section, Unit, Grade, and Location.

What is Basic Pay?

Basic Pay is the basic wage given to an employee in return for their work. This excludes any bonuses, benefits, and adjustments, and is listed as gross pay (before any tax or NI is deducted). The basic pay amount can be specified either as an hourly fee or as a salary. The first time you enter a basic pay for an employee is usually at the employee creation ➕ in the Employees tab.

Permissions

Anyone with the HR_EmployeePositionHistory permission will be able to access the Position History tab.
If you want to restrict access to the Basic Pay details, you will need to add or remove the HR_EmployeePay permission for your users. Below are some scenarios:

  1. Users with only HR_EmployeePositionHistory can:

    1. Access the Position History tab.

    2. Manage and view all its fields EXCEPT Basic Pay, according to the permissions granted (View, Delete, Insert, Update).

  2. Users with both HR_EmployeePositionHistory and HR_EmployeePay can:

    1. Access the Position History tab.

    2. Manage and view all its fields including the Basic Pay one, according to the permissions granted (View, Delete, Insert, Update).
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Managing Employee Details on the Employee Screen

From the Employees tab you can amend details related to the selected employee. When modifying the Basic Pay value, along with any of the above-mentioned fields, Indigo will prompt you to Set an Effective Date (the date from which the modification applies). This is compulsory.
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After you enter the date and click on the Save button, a new record line will be created in the Position History tab.
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🗒️ Note

If you set a past effective date from the Employee profile, an error message is shown in the bottom right corner. This is because the Employee profile only accepts present or future effective dates.
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However, you can set a past effective date for the mentioned fields if you amend or create a record straight in the Position History tab.

Managing Records in the Position History Tab

The Position History tab is shown as a grid, in which all the scheduled and past record changes are displayed in separate selectable lines.

Creating a New Record

  1. Click on the Insert ➕ button and fill up the fields accordingly.
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    💡 Tip

    For most fields, you can click on the 🔍 icon to go through the full list of values for that specific field. You can also create a new value by clicking on the ➕ icon.

  2. Click on the Save button ✔️ in the toolbar when you are ready.
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⚠️ Caution

If you add or modify a value while inputting a past date, all the values you input might affect reports and calculations in the past.


E.g. In October 2024, you created a new basic pay record effective for August 2024. If you re-open the August Payroll for some reason and re-calculate it, the basic wages showing in the payslips and related reports will change according to your recent retroactive basic pay update.

Deleting a Record

  1. Tick the record's checkbox in the grid view and click on the Delete (bin) icon.
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  2. Click Delete when asked 'Are you sure you want to delete the 1 selected record?'​.

Editing an Existing Record

  1. Tick the record's checkbox and click on the pencil icon. ✏️
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  2. Now proceed with your needed modifications.

  3. Don't forget to click Save when you're done!
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🤔 Remember

  1. When a value is selected or inserted and saved for the above-mentioned fields, it will override the existing ones in the Employee tab when the Effective Date hits.

  2. When clicking Edit for a record whose effective date is in the past but which does not affect the present date, a pop-up will ask you to confirm if you want to edit that entry OR if you want to create a new one.

E.g. The last Position History entry is for the 25th. Today is the 30th, so the last record is still valid and ongoing today. If you try to edit this record, no pop-up will show.
However, if you try to edit a record from before the 25th, the message will come up.

System Filters

The System Filters can be accessed from the sidebar that appears after clicking the related icon on the toolbar. It will slide out from the right side of the screen.

The available filtering options for this tab are:

  • Basic Pay changes: it filters changes done only to the Basic Pay field. (If an entry is made that changes any other field but leave Basic Pay untouched, this entry will not appear when using this filter.)

  • Occupation changes: it filters changes done only to the Occupation field.

  • Cost Centre changes: it filters changes done only to the Cost Centre field.

  • Department changes: it filters changes done only to the Department field.

  • Section changes: it filters changes done only to the Section field.

  • Unit changes: it filters changes done only to the Unit field.

  • Grade changes: it filters changes done only to the Grade field.

  • Location changes: it filters changes done only to the Location field.

  • Active this year: only entries from the current year will be shown.

Feel free to experiment by selecting one or more of the above filters to achieve the needed narrowed results.

🗒️ Note
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When an employee is created from scratch and saved, the first record in the Position History tab is created at the same time. This record will always show, no matter what system filter you pick, as it works as a 'starting value' to compare to future changes.

Send an Email on Basic Pay Change

You can set Indigo to email relevant people within your company when an employee's pay has been changed.

  1. Go to Payroll > Settings > Payroll > Employee Settings.

  2. Click Edit and tick the setting 'Enable email notification on basic pay change'.

  3. In the textbox directly below, enter the email addresses of the people that need to be notified of any basic pay changes. If there are multiple emails, separate each one with a semicolon.

  4. Select Save.

When an employee's basic pay has been changed, the below email will be sent to the email addresses previously entered in the above-mentioned setting, with the respective employee's code and name in the email text.
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Import and Export Records in the Position History Tab


If you're in a rush ⏲️, please note it's also possible to import and export the Position History records in bulk. 😉
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The import and export processes work exactly the same as for the Employees and Pay Items tabs:

  • You can generate a blank template in Excel to populate the blank cells and upload new records.

  • You can create a selection of templates. These templates ensure you have the columns you need for any regular scenario, ready for exporting. Once created, they're available from the 'Filter Templates' dropdown any time you need them.
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  • You can export the selected columns, update the values in the cells and import the file to update existing records.

    📋 Note

    • If any cells are left empty in the Excel file, the system will use the entry directly before the effective date to populate those values in the Position History grid.​

      • E.g. If you want to change occupations with an effective date of 30/04/2025, simply fill in the OccupationCode column along with the EffectiveDate one. 👇
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    • To keep a value empty in Position History, input [BLANK] in the Excel field.​

      • E.g. If the Occupation field must be empty, input [BLANK] in the relevant cell under the Occupation column in Excel. After importing the file back into Indigo, when the effective date is reached then the Occupation field will be blanked out.
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    🧠 Important Tips

    We saw that the Position-History-related fields can be inputted and updated from the Employee profile.
    But, what happens if you do so by importing an Excel file?
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    1. You can update any field in the Employee Profile except the ones available in the Position History tab (including the Basic Pay), via an Excel file import.

      • E.g. You cannot update the Occupation in the Employee Profile via importing an Excel file, but you can update the Work Schedule.

    2. You can create a brand new Employee Profile when importing an Excel file. In this case alone, fill the Position History fields in the Excel file and import it back into Indigo.

      • The initial effective date for the Position History fields will automatically be set to the employment date.
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